Satisfying our need for speed

With Emiratis ranked among the world’s great travellers, and millions of expatriates coming and going from all points overseas, it’s no wonder that aviation is a hot topic here.

Given our propensity to travel very long distances, one popular point of discussion is the quest by airlines to schedule the world’s longest non-stop flight. Qatar Airways’ flight from Doha to Auckland recently pipped Emirates’ service from Dubai to the same destination. However, Qantas is determined to snatch the title by offering a direct flight from Sydney to London by 2022. That will involve a journey of 17,960 kilometres and 20 hours in the air.

This raises the question: are airline passengers really prepared to spend the best part of a day in a carbon-composite cylinder at 35,000 feet? Is there not a better, faster way?

Well, it comes down to aircraft technology, several companies are trying to develop supersonic planes that promise far quicker journeys.

We’ve been down this path before. Concorde could do the trip between London and New York in less than half the time taken by conventional aircraft. But it had drawbacks, including its supersonic boom, which meant it was largely restricted to flying over water so it didn’t disturb people on the ground, and the fact that it was prohibitively expensive for everyday passengers. Only Air France and British Airways used the aircraft, but neither made a profit and both retired their fleets after a Concorde crashed near Paris in 2000, killing 113 people.

The new generation supersonic jets promise to be as fast or even faster, fly quietly, and be more economical and thus more affordable.

Among those on the drawing board is Boom, a plane that could fly from London to New York in less than three-and-a-half hours with tickets priced at $5,000 (Dh18,400). Another plane called Zehst (for Zero Emission Hyper Sonic Transport) would be even faster if it achieved the promised speed of Mach 4 (4,900 kph), meaning a trip from London to New York in just one hour or London to Tokyo in less than three hours. Some experts say that speeds of Mach 5.4 are possible with planes that are designed to fly in suborbital space.

But all of these are a long way off. Among other reasons, airlines and aircraft manufacturers doubt that enough people would be prepared to pay the high asking price – especially since first and business class seats and service in conventional planes are already very high. With comfortable, flat beds, they also act as hotel rooms on long flights.

Perhaps those with a need for speed should look to Hyperloop One. The American company, which has opened an office in Dubai, says it can transport people in pods running within a near-vacuum inside a long tube at speeds of up to 1,200 kph.

That means a trip between Abu Dhabi and Dubai would take just 12 minutes and that certainly beats a 90-or-more minutes commute in the family car.